This refers to the news item IIT-M student dies by suicide, 4th in 2.5 months in Times of India on April 22, 2023. The news item talks of the death of a 20-year-old B Tech student at IIT Madras by suicide in his hostel room on April 21, 2023, making it the fourth such incident involving students of the institution in the past two and a half months.
In the instant case, it was Kedar Suresh, a Maharashtra native, who left behind a supposed suicide note expressing apologies to his parents and friends and stating that nobody should be held responsible for his death.
As cited above, the trail of events raises serious questions that cry for answers.
Why do our talented, dynamic and academically brilliant students suffer bouts of irreversible depression?
Do the apparent causes that come to the fore for such unfortunate events provide all answers to the above question, or are there deeper afflictions in our society or paradigms of living? Have we taken serious cognisance of the above afflictions if they are real?
Or have we identified the holes in our systems of living—systems of education or other associated paradigms which create such enormous stress in our youngsters’ lives that it takes a toll on some of them?
The above questions must be answered because they pertain to our youth—our society’s backbone and constitute our young nation’s driving and propelling force. They must be answered to enable our nation to grow fast to all round prosperity and become the global leader in all walks of life as it has been for a long, long period of recorded and unrecorded history.
In the case of the incident mentioned above of Kedar Suresh, preliminary police investigations have revealed that the 20-year-old took his life over a failed relationship.
Nothing could be more unfortunate.
Our education system has serious flaws. The Macaulay-designed system of the early 19th century in British-ruled India, intended to churn out literate youngsters suitable for working as employees of big commercial or corporate houses, continues in independent India, which broke free from foreign rule 75 years ago. The extant system does not develop good human beings—physically strong, mentally steadfast and intellectually independent. It doesn’t generate leaders; it only creates followers. It doesn’t refine our youngsters mentally and morally. It does not bring about the multifaceted development of individuals. It develops them in a crooked way.
This is the real problem which needs to be resolved by establishing our education system, which instils in youngsters dharmic values of our timeless Sanatan tradition, in which the first twenty-five years of life are devoted to the all-round development of the youngster in a celibate existence. An all-around product is meant—for physical, mental, intellectual, moral and spiritual development.
The other reason for suicide cases in IITs that has frequently come to our knowledge is the hard academic curriculum that some students cannot cope with. Many of these students break down under the severe stress of high expectations of grades in examinations in the tough B Tech course. Here again, our academic system has to take the blame. We have made the system too many marks and grade centred. We should have evolved our system in line with our Sanatan cultural values instead of blindly copying foreign systems, which we did when these premier institutions were established.
Our healthy, time-tested traditions should have formed the foundation of our systems of academia. This can still be done, and we need to set about the task of major reforms in our paradigms.
There is much to change and reform if we become culturally independent as a nation. We still need to. Let us do whatever is required to change our systems of education, our archaic British time laws, our judicial systems derived from such laws and last, but not least, our political system to create a genuinely independent Bharat that will again become the economic, academic, technological, cultural and spiritual leader of the world—the true Vishwaguru.
